Tuesday, February 18, 2014

“I’m
getting divorced.” No matter how many times you’ve said it in your head, the
first time you say it out loud is startling. A bit like saying “I have cancer,”
people look at you funny; they pause and step away for a moment. Perhaps it’s contagious. Maybe they heard you wrong, or they read it wrong. Because of
course, there are folks whom you love dearly and still have to tell via email
or text. It’s the wrong way to share that news, but you are exhausted from
talking about it. So you just hope they will understand. In fact, you are
drained from thinking about it, from living with it. You are so early in the
process and yet you are fully spent. So tired in fact, that you wonder if you
will ever feel like you again.

You spend
weeks preparing to talk to your children, dreading it, agonizing over it and
again not sleeping. Because you made them a promise, right? You promised them,
as they grew inside you, that you’d never die and that you’d never break their
hearts. That you’d walk through fire and into bullets to protect them. And you
lied. And you wonder if they will call you on that. And they do in their own
way – “but why”, “this is the worst day of my life”, “what do you mean you
don’t love each other”, “please say this is just a dream”, “but you’ll be so
lonely without each other”, “I never thought this could happen to us, it’s not
supposed to happen to us.” And your heart breaks - right along with theirs.

And you
wonder how you will survive and if you will be less of yourself on the other
side. So many people tell you how strong you are, how resilient your kids are
and how things will be better in the long run. You appreciate the affirmation,
the love and the support, you really do. Sometimes though, you want to tell
them to fuck off. Not because they
are wrong, but because today you’ll be happy to get out of bed, put one foot in
front of the other and not melt down. You know they are right. In fact, that it
is why you have made this decision. It is the silent mantra you repeat in your
mind when your child is curled in your lap on the floor or in your bed at
night. It’s the pep talk you give yourself as you look at the mounting dollars
this will cost, the friends you will lose or the lawyer you dread calling.

Statistically,
50% of married couples will wind up where you are and yet that does not make a
bit of difference to you. This is your marriage, your family and your death to
mourn. And a death it is. In Judaism there are rules for mourning – Shiva, Shloshim,
Kaddish, Yizkor and different lengths of time depending on who the deceased
was. There are no rules for the end of your marriage, no specified time or
tradition.

For those
of us who need a plan, a path and a set of guidelines for all things - good
luck! There is no playbook for this, no checklist. I know. I’ve searched. It
does not exist. You begin to make your own and it is long and grows every day.
You feel like you are drowning and suffocating all at once. It’s all so new and
there’s no path.

There are people though. It’s interesting who
you choose to confide in at first. It’s like a clown car of people who have the
right strengths, views, open arms, who lack judgment and just make sense for
some reason you can’t explain at all. And then it’s out and you wait for the
gossip, for the condolence calls and for something you didn’t plan on – those
you don’t hear from at all.

You realize
that for some it’s a need to take sides – sides that don’t exist in your case.
For others, it’s too much. Your choice makes them look harder at their own relationship
and question, wonder and fear. That part hurts, but you are too tired to focus
on it for too long. The one you really don’t count on though are the people who
judge. Those who think you could have tried harder, pushed on for longer or
simply that you should sacrifice everything
and anything for your children. You
resign yourself not to let that hurt – good luck with that too.

You also
know that you mean it when you tell him that you want to be friends. That you will
work harder at that than almost any other part. That you are committed to it
for your kids but also for yourself. Because you love him. No longer in love perhaps,
but after half a lifetime together, you simply love him. You love the father he
is. You love the story you have written together in that lifetime. You hope you
can divorce the marriage, but not the person entirely. You want the memories to
still make you laugh together and the future to be able to be shared around the
new version of your “family.” You believe that this is possible and make a
silent promise to make it so as best as you can.

So it’s out
there and you know even if you could take back the words, you wouldn’t. You
pray, even though praying isn’t really you. Nonetheless, you ask for strength
and sanity and sunshine because the grey is killing you. You lean hard on those
you can count on and feel more grateful than you ever have for your family and
your friends who are the family you’ve chosen for yourself. You look in your
kids eyes and beg silently for the light you know is still there. You cry and
you claw and you climb out of the hole every day, knowing if you stumble back
in, it’s OK.

“I’m
getting divorced.” But it’s not cancer. I am not dying. This was a choice. My
life is not over. This too is a beginning.